Prerequisites

Objectives and learning outcomes of the module

The aim of the course is to provide an overview of the ways in which varying bodies of scholarship across and intra various disciplines engage and study Palestine, and also an examination of how the study of Palestine cuts across and informs scholarly, theoretical, political and disciplinary approaches.

By the end of the course, the students should be able to demonstrate a critical understanding of the key issues debated and contested in Palestinian culture and society and familiarity with different disciplinary approaches, models, and scholarship frameworks in the study of Palestine. They will have been introduced to the key works in the subject and disciplines and become knowledgeable in the terminology and language in discourses about Palestine, and in the methods of analysis and argumentation as embodied in selected texts by leading authors. They will be able to relate theories and critical discourses to the contemporary cultural politics. They will acquire the critical tools to comprehend and analyse critical discourses on Palestine as well as the language to to write critically on Palestine.

Workload

This course will be taught over 20 weeks with a 2 hour weekly seminar.

Scope and syllabus

The course shall examine Palestinian culture and society since 1948. In so doing, it will aim to provide an overview of the different approaches –sociological, historical, anthropological, and via culture and media studies– to social relations, cultural production, and representation of Palestine.

The course not only provides some concrete knowledge of the themes presented here, but also suggests specific theoretical approaches that help illuminate, and are in turn illuminated by, the study of Palestinian culture and society. It will also train students in discourse analysis and critical examination of representation and its role in cultural and identity politics.

Course readings and discussions are guided by, but not exhaustive of, or exclusive to, the following major topics:

Diaspora and refugees

Inner exile

Gender and sexuality

Politics of the everyday

Religion and religious organisations

Space and geographies

Palestine and/in the media

Memory and oral history

Palestinian literature

Palestinian food, cinema, theatre, music

Consuming Palestine

The various sessions will reflect

The geographic diffusion of Palestinians in the diaspora, the Occupied Territories, and inside.

The ways in which gender is inflected through all the above (so that the discussion of gender and sexuality are not “ghettoised”).

Attentiveness to the debates under the heading of each theme, and the way these debates have broader significance and bearing on theoretical concerns of our time.

The politics of the day-to-day.

Method of assessment

An essay of 2,500 - 3,000 words to be submitted on Wednesday in the week after reading week, term 2 (50%); an essay of 2,500 - 3,000 words to be submitted on Wednesday, week 1, term 3 (50%).